


you know what you need is a conflagration

by lollard



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, Project Runway (US) RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-13
Updated: 2011-07-13
Packaged: 2017-10-21 08:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lollard/pseuds/lollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Style, as we may have mentioned, is about who you are. Since who we are shifts over time, our style stories are a never-ending bildungsroman." -- Tim Gunn</p>
            </blockquote>





	you know what you need is a conflagration

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through Catching Fire. Title from Andrew Bird's song "MX Missiles".

Walking the streets is different now. Cinna wears a crossbody bag. There's a combination lock on the latch. When pressed, he says that it's to protect his intellectual property. _It's probably paranoid_ , he says to an acquaintance at a café -- loudly, just in case there's a device in the centerpiece. _But I've been fortunate. I have to protect my brand._

It's not that Cinna is afraid. No civilian would dare touch him on the street. He's a rising star in the world of design. He's recognized. And at least for a little while, Snow needs him.

No, walking the streets is different _because_ he's recognized. He's getting high-profile spreads. People are scrutinizing his older collections, looking for patterns. And what they find in Cinna's work is antithetical to nearly all the trends in the Capitol: it's minimal. It defies ostentation and bright color. Cinna's work is rich, burnished, with matter-of-fact elegance. _Give it a few seasons_ , he thinks, _and the horn implants will be downright crass_. With a slight, unconscious sigh of exasperation, he continues down the street, coat collar turned up against the cutting wind.

The simplicity of his designs were how he caught the professor's eye, back when. It was different than anything his classmates produced. _Let's see your construction_ , he'd said, a flinty glint to his eye. _See if you can really keep it that simple in execution._ Cinna saw that for the challenge it was, saw the professor's cynicism -- and worked.

 _Raise the bar next time_ , said the handwritten note on his first-year portfolio, _and you and I will have a conversation_.

They'd meet after his history classes, one on one, and the professor would expand on the curriculum: centuries' worth of fashion, of science, of technology and trends. Of the work of the great houses in countries that failed hundreds of years ago. _Fashion is about risks_ , the professor told him. _As much as it's about identity, it's about risks. You can show someone who you are, and what you're made of, and you will never completely control how people respond. But you can try to manipulate them, if you can anticipate what they're ready for. They may not know it themselves._

At the time, they were in the professor's apartment, with Caesar Flickerman coaxing interviews out of tributes, a vision in magenta hair and lips, and that never-changing suit. There'd been wine. _That old goat_ , the professor said, bitterly. _That damn suit. He's worn the same ensemble for thirty years. You know what that says?_

 _It's the status quo_ , Cinna said.

The professor shot him a sharp look, then nodded. _It's political. It's all political._ He reached for the bottle to top them off. _I've seen so many of our students claw their way into stylist's positions -- and for what? So they can be famous, and try to out-tacky each other, and go to all the best parties and hold forth in all the industry rags, while the kids they dress --_ He pressed his lips together.

Without thinking, Cinna murmured, _So the starving kids they're tasked with can have their antepenultimate appearance before their slaughter to be paraded in front of the public naked and filthy, and then they can go home once the slaughter's over and toast themselves for a job well done, because they're edgy, and they're hip, and they're now. They've made it._

The professor lifted his glass for a toast.

Feeling numb, Cinna touched his glass to the professor's.

Cinna can still hear the resulting _clink_ as though it were a seal on a pact. And that's what it turned out to be, didn't it? Because Cinna has a sketchbook in his crossbody bag with its combination lock with twenty sketches of wedding dresses, and a twenty-first sketch of something else entirely.

He nods to the doorman as he proceeds into the lobby. The doorman, there for twenty years and more, knows him from his infrequent visits, and Cinna waits by the elevator for the professor to buzz him up.

The professor has dinner ready -- something with lamb, rice, shallots, a delicate sauce -- and once again, they split a bottle of wine. Cinna draws out his sketchbook, and flips to the twenty-first sketch.

The professor, still dressed for dinner in a neat pinstriped suit, impeccable even at this hour of the day, looks at it, and his eyes widen. "You think they're ready for it."

"I do," Cinna says. "Let me tell you what I have in mind -- " His finger brushes parts of what he wants to be Katniss's mockingjay dress as he describes the fit, flips pages and points to the sketch of the white wedding dress President Snow picked out personally. "It's got to be this when she's up there with Caesar. I need it to fall away. I need it to _burn_ , revealing her to be a mockingjay. And I think I know how."

"It's a trigger," the professor says. "It's going to work like pulling a trigger."

"Yes." They're huddled together over the sketchbook. "Exactly like pulling a trigger. The construction's going to be tricky, though. "

The professor straightens. The light catches on his glasses. For a brief second, Cinna can't see the professor's eyes -- like a wall there, between them. And he knows: he's going to be on his own. He knows what the mockingjay means, and so does the professor. He knows that he's likely to be arrested, imprisoned, maybe even executed, once the Games are over. The professor can't help him, once he goes forward with this plan. And there's not much time left before the Quarter Quell tribute interviews. Not much time left at all.

"Well," the professor says as he picks up his glass and swirls the contents. "You know what you have to do."

Cinna picks up his own. "I think so."

The professor drains his glass to the dregs, puts it down on the counter, and pins Cinna with his gaze.

"Make it work," he says.


End file.
